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"word play"

In My Hands - A poem about the passing of time

in my hands

in my hands
gentle and small
wonder and delight
an ebbing of laughter and stress

in my hands
the future rests
tasks to be learned
suprises of nature and mind

in my hands
a bundle of memories
my daughter's squirming
my son's gentle dreams

in my hands
vessel of potential
grasping for the next embrace
of that gift
offered daily

to my hands

Ever Get Bored?

Once I understand, I get disinterested.

My mind races beneath the wonderful burden of new, intense information. I twist my thoughts around new ideas, run breathless through the virgin concepts and visions of new horizons. Paradise found. Dreams realized, hopes born anew, belief becomes faith and I know that this is the place, the existence that I have sought.

Then.

Novelty becomes familiar, fresh deeds routine, and the discipline (oh, the horror of that word) mundane. I long to dance among the cliffs, and cast my dreams once more upon the clouds. If not for the tenuous sanity that my program of spiritual growth and recovery affords me, I'd be off chasing sprites and fantasies deep in the realm of Hades, losing my sanity and my soul, again.

I must remember, as we all must, that desire without discipline leads to disappointment and disillusionment.  I will be vigilant and grow more serene, eventhough I scream to release passionate and perilous specters - for their time will come again, soon enough.

One Word Can Fix It All

The Right Word

Do you ever find yourself stuck, fingers poised upon the keys and yet – nothing. There is a thought, the beginning of a phrase hanging on the very edge of your mind and then – nothing. You know there is a word to describe, or at least a word that will begin the fall of the avalanche of prose that is pressing so dutifully upon your mind, straining to flow through you and onto the page and into the world, a message of fine worth and clear depth – waiting for that beginning, that right word to give the process the smallest nudge into existence.

Well, that is where I am right now and that word eludes me…

In Between - A Poem About Transiency



In Between

dusk and flickering candles. 
sensations of 
in between

gentle caresses of the last scent of yesterday's cookies, baked and eaten. 
in between

a leaf falling upward, riding on the breeze of summer's heat
in between

silent breath
 your voice pausing between words
measured with care
in between

the end and the beginning

the alpha and the omega

the dream and the reality

we live here for no more than a moment

in between

Success is When You Win (repost)

The Pelican

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His mouth can hold more than his belly can,
He can hold in his beak,
Enough food for a week!
I'm damned if I know how the hell he can!

-Dixon Lanier Merritt, a Southern newspaper editor and President of the American Press Humorists Association, penned this famous limerick in 1910. It is carved in stone and displayed prominently at Brook Green gardens in SC.

Watching several Pelicans feed in the tributaries of Murrells Inlet, SC, I was taken by how often they fail to catch fish. It is fairly easy to mark a successful dive, as the stately bird will raise its beak skyward to send the fish wiggling down its gullet. I began keeping score. I counted a total of twenty five dives between four birds and could only verify a catch seven times. With a slightly better than 25% success rate, these gobbling fowl still are known as great fishers.

I guess nature confirms the old saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

1. Hunger for something will keep you trying.
2. The pain of failure is quickly forgotten once the benefits of success arrive.
3. Never give up.

Do You Know the US Postal Service Motto?



Since we are having some inclement weather, my brain was triggered to recall that there seemed to be (in the ancient recesses of my mind) a time when the Postal Service was a beacon of determination and perseverance. The mail WOULD be delivered. Wasn't there a motto to that effect???

The Answer:

Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. Postal Service has no "official motto."

The familiar sentence you are thinking of is this: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

This is commonly misidentified as the creed of our mail carriers, but actually it is just the inscription found on the General Post Office in New York City at 8th Avenue and 33rd Street.
Here's how the official Web site of the U.S. Postal Service describes the origin of the inscription.

This inscription was supplied by William Mitchell Kendall of the firm of McKim, Mead & White, the architects who designed the New York General Post Office. Kendall said the sentence appears in the works of Herodotus and describes the expedition of the Greeks against the Persians under Cyrus, about 500 B.C. The Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers, and the sentence describes the fidelity with which their work was done. Professor George H. Palmer of Harvard University supplied the translation, which he considered the most poetical of about seven translations from the Greek.

Thank you InfoPlease for this wonderful information.

Amusing Awareness





Why do you remain
There
A brush by my world
Radiating
Passion against my senses
Leaving
Me longing for more

Your voice sang today
Mournful
Lyrics of loss and hope
Ascending
Tones of fluttering union
Scattered
Eternally within my mind

Uncomfortable hauntings...

Skinned



Skinned

The layers peel
With a severe ease
Sub-dermal lament resides
Desire

Peeling

Cracking drafts of promises
Too familiar, too simple
Latent memory unveiled
Need

Peeling, peeling

Like dead skin from a sunburned thigh.

2011 Begins

Now with some contrived and essential mark we measure this as a time of beginning, starting over to be met with resolute and refocused living. We stand on the horizon of this day drawing on every clarion call to gather the greatest of forces, the grandest of hopes and the masses of humanity around us - all to establish this elusive passing of time, this moment with the greatest of potential and confidence that now, here and for all that comes our life will be blessed, better, different, improved...

This now is then followed by the somber morning when the debris of the previous is scattered, flittering upon the ground around us and we find this New morning has embraced us, each singularly, and all that we have proclaimed in the midst of our cheering  Auld Lang Syne community - now rest squarely upon our lone shoulders. We know, always have known, that whatever progress this life will find in the day ahead will come only from the first small, solitary steps toward it we take - and then another...  In this each year is built and in this each life is lived, won, lost, blessed and founded. In this singular effort to live a life of value and worth we find, nay create, the illusive reality of community and family of like minded and action folk.

Here's to our New Year. Today I take that step to begin anew and I look forward to traveling with you...

Word Mire



Word Mire

there is too much
written
that only scratches the surface of it
like the cats claws picking
shredding cashmere as if it were
an old rug

too many words
written
that only pretend passion
like roadside clay jars
imitating ancient Greek
vases


there are so many words
written
that define verbosely beauty
 sprayed out like tobacco spit
dried on the edges of a saloon
cuspidor

there are too many words
written
that I must wade through
fighting mundane currents
insipid tidal pools spawning
muck

there are too many words
written
around those few gems, crystals
that find their way through the morass
and glisten delicate hues of
you

there are too many words
written
that must be read
and I have lost
the time
the patience
the heart
to read my way to you
now